Niagara University Students find housing well worth wait

[Guest guest]

http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20021014/1005571.asp

NIAGARA UNIVERSITY

Students find apartment-style housing well worth wait

By NANCY A. FISCHER

News Niagara Bureau

10/14/2002

LEWISTON - It was moving day and everyone was all smiles at Niagara

University as students and their parents lugged box after box of personal

belongings into the school's new apartment-style housing. The $11 million

project took a year to build on the southeast corner of the campus, adjacent

to Dwyer Ice Arena. But moving day was delayed for two months after mold was

discovered in crawl spaces of all six buildings.

A campus housing crunch, because of a large freshman enrollment, forced

university officials to find temporary shelter for the 192 students who had

planned to move into the apartments in August. About 70 were forced to live

in the Holiday Inn Select in Niagara Falls. Others found shelter in study

lounges in Clet Hall, while one floor of the all-girl dormitory, O'Donoughue

Hall, was set aside for boys.

But with the mold problem cleaned up, moving day had come and 64 students

moved into two of the six buildings Saturday. The words " I'm so excited "

were echoed over and over again as they unloaded boxes into the sand-colored

brick buildings that looked more like townhouses than dormitories. The

remaining students are expected to move in by the end of the month. Every

space is filled, and only juniors, seniors and graduate students are allowed

to apply for space in the apartments.

" Freshman enrollment has skyrocketed. The timing could not have been

better, " ph Cuda, dean of students, said about the opening of the new

housing. " It's amazing the way it worked out. "

The six buildings are arranged in a circle, with a courtyard in the middle.

Officially, they sit on " Mount Eagle Circle, " named in a contest by

Olin, a former resident assistant in the dorms who is now a newly designated

" community assistant " for a building in the new complex.

Each of the six buildings has one community assistant. Four students share a

single 1,300-square-foot apartment, and they each have their own bedroom,

complete with a sink/vanity area in their room; a full kitchen with

refrigerator, dishwasher, stove and eating area and ample cupboard space; a

furnished living room; two full bathrooms with step-in showers; ample closet

space in the bedrooms; and a storage closet in the hall, large enough to

store a few bicycles. Each floor of the two-story building has eight of

these apartments, with one laundry room per floor.

Senior Mike proudly showed off his closet and said, " I've never had

this much closet space, even at home. "

His friend , also a senior, had moved into the building next door

and called the two bathrooms and vanity in the room " every girl's dream. "

Katrina Needham, a junior, said she was one of the first to sign up for one

of the apartments.

It is like having an apartment off-campus, Needham said. " These apartments

are not quite off-campus, so I'm still living on campus. This is like a

transition, " she said.

R. Justus, developer for the project, said most of the campus housing

dated from the 1950s and '60s. The second phase of the project, which is

several years down the road, calls for construction of three more buildings

to house 120 more students. Prior to building the apartments, about 1,300

students could live on campus.

A dedication and blessing of the student apartment complex will be held at 3

p.m. Nov. 1.

e-mail: nfischer@...